Against Life
by Dr. Abraxas
Summary: Life with Naraku & Kagura traumatizes Kohaku. Abused mentally & sexually, he grows up to be demented & deranged. After the Inugang frees him he lashes out against the world the one way he knows how. sick and twisted alert!
1. Chapter 1

"Against Life" by Abraxas (06-10-31)

Chapter One

There are many different kinds of deformities. People, in their infinite wisdom, only acknowledge those that can be seen. Oh, the horror of it! Just watch them draw back and run away when confronted by demons or the ill formed among their own number. True, their ghastly proportions are unmistakable – undeniable – but does that alone make them as inhuman as feared?

In these times of war and famine people want normality and sameness and anything that verges into the unusual is to be feared. Fools – let their madness lead them into the grave, the world would be a better place indeed without the excesses of the ignorant. If only they comprehended those monsters that dwell among them that their prejudice render invisible. A gentle voice, a smiling face, even with the thinnest veneer a demon may lurk within the human-world undetected.

And me? What of me? If you saw me from a distance, if you passed me by the road, if you sat by me at the tavern? Would you know – by looking – would you suspect? Admit it, as you surely must, it would not occur to you that this man is not what he appears to be. And were I not to confess it you would not know to fear me more than a hoard of a hundred demons.

I am the monster. I dwell within this world though I am not part of it. I linger about the realm of man like a disease, festering, aiming to rot the universe out from within. I intend to destroy you by destroying the illusions you cling onto. The love of family and friends, the hope of the future, these things are balanced by the flimsiest threads that are my pleasure to sever. My mission – my work, my art – is to taint the pure wherever it is whatever it may be.

I ask: am I not infinitely more monstrous than the vilest demon imaginable? A demon, after all, is an honest enemy. One that does not mask its meaning, its wanting to be destructive. But my methods are very different.

I was not always like this. Once I was human. My name was Kohaku and I used to be part of a family. But my father, my sister, I killed them. And my friends, I butchered them. True, I was possessed by Naraku and I was forced to act against my will, yet when fate gave me the chance to avenge them I sided with the enemy of their existence. I became – by my own free will – the apprentice of the master so the blood will not be, ever, washed cleaned off of my hands.

I was young and confused but I knew – even then, I knew – humanity would not accept me back into its realm. If you knew of the crimes I committed by the age of ten, just by the age of ten, you would be understanding of my plight. Whom else could I turn to for solace and reassurance? Who else could accept me as I was without judgment and condition? Only my own corruptor.

Evil is tolerant.

Naraku was the father of my spirit. And like a fly caught in a web, at first I struggled against him and then I accepted him into my soul. And when I acquiesced, I became happy again, I became whole again. I realized I was free – though it was not the typical sort of freedom that could be understood – I was free simply because I did not have to fight. I did not have to lie or pretend. And the reward? As the void of the abyss withdrew out of the depths there emerged dimensions of expression heretofore unimaginable.

I said I was young and confused. And though I dread to admit it, it cannot be denied, I was also afraid. Of my early, formative years under Naraku's cloak, I do not remember sunlight. I do not possess recollections of day only of night. Night within that castle. It was not a place for humans – let alone ten-year-olds – yet there I was, alone, surrounded by miasmas and demons, the offspring of my master.

There was Kanna, a void more dead than alive, she did not have a real, independent existence. It did not have to be told to me, I knew by instinct she was to be avoided. Only something so innocent-looking could be so terrifying. There was Kagura, perhaps the greatest of my master's creations, she rebelled against him yet could not escape him. She was beautiful and in ways known only to me, loving and tender, although doubtless the world would have frowned upon the affection she showed me.

And there was Naraku. I spare you my feelings toward him. Those will be clear soon if they are not already. As for physical description, what reflects off my mirror is an eerily similar replica. Often I wonder if my impression of the past clouds my perception of the present so much so that I see traces of him within my features where the resemblances do not belong. That in succumbing to his designs I recreated him in my image. Or it could be – and perchance may be true – that from the beginning, no, from before the beginning, he chose a form that would be an equal of my own, future visage. I cannot say. But he was beautiful, more beautiful than Kagura, and his manner was like a noble's, delicate and effeminate.

Beneath that mask of civility lay a fury of evil.

Just to be around him was enough to be poisoned forever.

Yes, I feared Naraku. I feared the power – his power – that could create and destroy me at whim. It could not be helped. But know that I was determined, those who are destined to survive do not give up, and children, especially children, are sly, crafty things easily malleable to conform to fit the situation. I recognized through Kagura's defiance that if I could be useful it would be my leverage to survive. So it was that I became my master's ever-loyal servant.

Though eroded by time and distance, there lingers within my mind memories of events that shaped the character of my destiny. These were key points along the line of development that transformed me from a boy to a man. These were also the initial, tentative steps into Naraku's private inner world.

It started while I was at the height of my fear.

Coming out of a trance, I thought I would be lying on my back but, instead, I was sitting on the floor. Flesh, warm and supple, pressed against my face for it was that my body rested against another's. Lifting myself out of the crease of those firm and swollen breasts, I felt the touch of fingers and the fabric of sleeves brush against my cheeks, I understood by the asymmetry of my skin and the kimono that I was cold and naked. Yet it did not bother me that I, a boy, was naked with a demoness, it was routine for me to be with Kagura like that while we slept within my master's lair.

I yawned, the taste of milk fresh upon my lips; I blinked, sensing with my eyes the deep and dark dimensions of the bedroom. Moonlight filtered through the blinds of far distant windows. The flux of the starlight was bright and I saw Kagura, her kimono opened and rumpled to expose her breasts, and my hands upon them cupping their forms. I must have been nursing and somehow, someway, was lulled into a dream.

Kagura grasped me and held me still. At the time I thought it was the strangest thing to be restrained like that. It was very much unusual for her to be that violent with me. I resisted, though, and she relented. She did not completely release me from her hand's tight and intimate hold.

"It was just a dream, boy, don't be foolish!" she chided, reaching between my legs and yanking me as if the trauma would be enough to stop me.

I had been asleep and now through her statement she confirmed the intuition. Something roused me from dream. Something – a disturbance, an echo – whatever it was, it was external to the chamber. And it scared her and she wanted me to dismiss it as if it were nightmare.

"Boy!" She leapt atop me, pinning me onto the floor with the weight of her body. "If you leave you will be destroyed!" she warned.

Crawling, limping, stumbling, I fought off Kagura's smothering and emerged onto my own, two feet like a baby of sorts birthing itself.

Within the hallway, I was met by impenetrable, bottomless void for the light of the stars did not penetrate into the bowels of the castle. That, however, did not faze me. Rather it was the silence that affected me. Imagine the quiet of a tomb falling like a fog enveloping the world. It was that kind of silence, that suggestion of doom, that more than the blackness of the abyss terrified me almost into retreat. Almost. It was not enough – I tread deeper into the lair as though driven by the urge to uncover the great, hidden secrets of the universe.

I tread, no, I ran and despite those random twists and turns a blinded boy in a darkened fortress would be prone to take – as if guided by forces beyond mortal comprehension – I reached the source of whatever it was that alarmed me and Kagura.

For then and there _the sound_ returned.

It was the cry of an animal. A wail of pain, sudden and unexpected, echoed through the darkness. The bark was followed by the suggestion of flesh tearing and bone snapping. If the disturbance contained more, finer ingredients then my memory spared me the shock. I swear it to be true – how it pains me to be blunt – but I do not know why I did not faint.

I remained at the doorway, it was the entrance into a chamber that I stumbled onto, all the while behind its iron and wood frame echoed what must have been torture. I sat and waited. I struggled but I succumbed to sleep. I did not dream. And when I awoke it was not yet day though twilight of an unnatural, eerie variety washed the interior of that wing of the castle.

I was afraid but I was driven to know what lay beyond the gates. I was frustrated because I knew I would not get answers that day. Worse, my position was insecure and ridiculous as it was too late to retreat and too late to advance. If only I fought off the urge to rest, if only I had been stronger, I could have accelerated into Naraku's world. But of this I was certain: who or what lurked behind the gates was very well aware of my presence. I did not doubt that. I impressed the master with my persistence and after the thought formed within my brain the hypothesis was confirmed.

My senses were set ablaze as the doorway opened and Naraku emerged: the spider gazed at me and smiled and I smiled.

The ritual repeated through the period of a season. Always I awoke – startled by scream – always I crawled out of Kagura's bed into the castle's labyrinth. I reached the doorway that was not to Naraku's bedchamber but to part of the fortress I was not aware existed. Sometimes he was there and I was haunted by the symphony of those sounds of pain. Sometimes he was not there except through the fog of the miasma.

During those empty, quiet nights, Kagura was bold enough to follow me though her aim was to lure me back into bed.

"Do you know what's inside?" I asked but she did not answer.

She insisted I keep away from Naraku's dreadful nighttime sport. It seemed she was aware of what took place behind those gates. It scared her that I wanted to know. To lure me away she bribed me with promises of pleasure and affection, promises a woman would not offer a boy, yet I could not be deterred by her words. She and I were stubborn alike.

Damn it, I could be impatient and obstinate, though what drove those feelings I did not know. Perhaps it was rebellion against the monotony of my life, perhaps not, one way or another I was impelled to force Naraku to act. With luck, my triumph might just coax Naraku to let me into his world not just into his chamber. While he was away, as he was prone to be during those battles with Inuyasha, and while Kagura was preoccupied with her own plans of escape, I pried the locks and passed through the gates.

Access! Can you fathom my excitement? The sensations filling my body were intense and unlike anything I felt before or since. Aroused by my rapid heartbeat and my heavy breathing, a hardness formed between my legs as feelings deep within me ached to break free. My hands assumed a motion that I struggled and succeeded to stop, as I was too excited to be distracted by that call of Nature.

Verging into real discovery, exploring about realm I had not seen, I was prepared for disaster at every turn. I was ready for fear beyond imagination. But what I found, superficially, proved to be disappointment and I should have realized what awaited simply by the ease through which I entered – for, you see, the room seemed to be empty.

The chamber was large, among the largest within the castle. It resembled a dungeon but was too well kept and neat to be such a place. Along the walls were locked doorways and opened passages that suggested the possibilities of deeper, darker realms. I avoided those locations fearing the room and its periphery was not as vacant as it appeared. I concentrated my efforts onto the center, where there were placed an oblong, ceramic basin, several, metal implements and a box containing needles and thread.

It was wrong to say the room was empty – clearly, it was not – rather it was unused. And in its slumber did it not appear as innocent as a common study or drawing room? The activities that stirred and stoked my imagination had been extinguished as a candle blown-out by the air and it left not a single solitary trace behind to tantalize my senses about what it could have been. Except – yes, there, there at the corner of the basin, upon the floor itself was a spot Naraku's careful eye missed.

Or – I wondered as I gasped – or was it planted to whet my curiosity?

It was a bone, like that of the legs, small, like that of a rat. It had been sliced cleanly into two, asymmetric portions. I noted the tools. Among the implements were knives one of which I judged to be sharp enough to cut the bone without destroying it.

Realizing the important connections between the tools and the animal-sounds, I took the time to inspect the tables minutely. Scrapers, knives and shears of all size and shape were ordered upon the tabletops using a clear and definite methodology. Each tool was clustered by type, each cluster arranged by importance. The needles were grouped by metal or bone then by use. And the thread – it was the thread that set me aback – it was not thread but Naraku's hair.

Before I was the master's servant, I was apprentice to my father, a demon-slayer. I knew all about weapons, which was why I was attracted to the implements, and I knew about demonology too. I understood the mechanism through which he controlled his puppet-doubles: they were given life and manipulated through the use of his hair. Nothing I knew about the subject explained what lay atop the tables, nothing I understood revealed the aim of the method or technique – if, indeed, it was a pursuit with an aim.

Then at the moment I was about to leave I heard a sound – not that sound – it was new and different and I jumped. I almost screamed aloud but a fragment of better judgment prevented the slip. The sound – which by comparison to that sound was commonplace and normal – seemed to be emanating from a doorway I avoided.

Now I approached it. And it came again and again. It was a rocking, a jostling type of sound mixed with a chirp or yelp that was not caused by an animal. To be sure, I suspected it was a creature within the antechamber that produced the noise yet the sound I heard was not characteristic to it like a bark or a meow would be to a dog or a cat. I believed it was scratching – scratching coming from the other side of the doorway – and as I inspected the panels, I saw that its substance bulged and that its bulge moved. It was scratching and it echoed about the chamber like lightning, sharp and high-pitched enough to overwhelm my already-heightened senses.

I advanced and it – the creature – withdrew. I heard it scuffle and drag itself away. I took the chance. I opened the gate. Beyond it, the antechamber revealed cages. Bamboo and metal cages stacked one atop the next from floor to ceiling. Within the cages were – animals – what used to be animals. Tiny dogs and cats, reptiles, and other, unusual zoology whose origins I could not grasp. I say again and I cannot over-emphasize the point – what I found within those cages were things that used to be animals. I only guessed at the dogs and cats because I judged them to be of that origin by their sizes and colors. Beyond that, their shapes were not at all what they should have been as representatives of those species.

Some appeared to be headless – headless yet alive – with cauterized stumps from which protruded eyes and lips. Some were adorned with one leg, usually about the centers of their bodies. Some were endowed with two to four legs, but arranged in ways that were not to be found in Nature. Of course, seeing that menagerie of nightmares my impression was that they were animals that had been born deformed and that – through demonology or normal, human care – Naraku was keeping alive. But upon a detailed inspection I understood something very different was happening within Naraku's hidden, secret chambers.

The evidence was unmistakable about the regions of the limbs – there I saw the scars and the stitches, there the aim of the implements could not be denied as it revealed the cutting and sewing of flesh and bone – the creatures had been manufactured.

Crawling away, out of the antechamber, into the world of Naraku, my foot struck the remains of a cage. I did not hear it fall – it must have fallen long, long before I entered the room – and I did not see its remnants until that moment, that instant. No doubt, the case had been tipped-over and tumbled. Hitting the ground, it shattered and released its prisoner. I knelt atop it, I reached into its broken, mangled parts – and the creature that escaped the cage, the creature that scratched against the doorway, erupted out of the shadows and bit into my hand.

I screamed and fainted.

I awoke and I knew I had been moved into Kagura's bedroom. Naked beneath the covers of the tatami, I noted that both my hand and my head were equally cloaked by linen bandages. I sighed – and choked – I kept myself still as the slightest movement produced extreme pain. The creature's bite was poison. I did not die because the demonic power that resurrected me would not let me.

Alone I cried, not because of the discomfort but because of the failure. I had been defeated by my own recklessness. Yet I won, too, Naraku would be forced to deal with me. And I knew what to do to be helpful.

Out of the shadows, Kagura entered into view and sat by me.

"I told you, boy, I told you! Do not enter that room, humans were not meant to be inside. Now look at you, you're a mess and I don't know why you're alive. Humans do not snoop about places like that and live."

All the while she scowled and chided she pulled aside the covers and raised my head and shoulders from that cold, hard floor to her warm, soft body. Weakly, with twisted hands shaking and flailing, I reached through the collar of her kimono and exposed her breasts. I brushed my face against her skin; she eased my head into her cleavage. Together we held each other tight, locked through an embrace we did not resist. I suckled the milk of the demoness and it brought me back into strength.

I stirred, growing into a firmness more vigorous and potent than I had been before. Instantly I became aware of a connection between Kagura's body and carnal pleasure. It felt so natural – what a thing to be speaking of Nature within Naraku's castle – but it felt as natural as life and I did not fight against it. I did not resist when she touched and explored it. She fondled it, repeating the rhythm that I, myself, discovered, and whatever sorcery she employed with her hands and their motion it worked and I was calm, again, my pain was relieved.

I withdrew away from her breasts and her touch. I looked at her and she looked at me. She did not smile, she did not frown either. Neither was it within her character to be so calm and serene. I could not read the expression, I could not fathom it, it was a new and different gaze all together.

"Stay with me. Kohaku. We will be nothing if we do not work together. But can't you see? We're trapped. He keeps us alive as long as we're useful and when we're a burden he casts us away like garbage. If you go back into that room, if you help him do what he does – even if you survive – you will be destroyed."

"And if I stay with you?"

"You can give me what I need to defeat Naraku."

At that age, I did not understand. It was a mystery, that desire to touch and be touched. Where did it come from? Where did it intent to lead? It seemed to be part of what she needed of me but I failed to see how anything coming from me could be used to defeat Naraku.

It appeared I was caught between two urges. One, spurred by Kagura's seduction, was the desire to be intimate. The other, driven by Naraku's secrecy, was the impulse to know and be useful and – if possible – to be if not loved then appreciated. I did not fathom Kagura's aim, I doubted it could be successful, whatever the nature of her plans for me were. So, so I chose to live, and if that meant becoming the demon's accomplice I was willing and able to take that chance.

After I healed, while Kagura did not watch, I slipped out of the castle and into the far, distant fields unaffected by the miasma. There, amid the forests, I lay traps. Over the course of a week I caught several small animals and a bird. The worst I set free, the best I kept and presented as my sacrifice. I placed the offerings before the doorway and waited – and when Naraku saw my tribute, he let me inside.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

From peasants to emperors, everyone everywhere engages their own, particular hobby. Even the fiercest samurai practices verses and arranges flowers. The damned and detestable also pass their time with their art. Is it a shock? Why should it not be with the evil as with the good?

Entering that chamber not as an interloper but as an apprentice, I was immersed into a world human beings cannot understand. Where I would have been rejected by mankind, there I was embraced and accepted. Where I would have been marginalized and ignored, there I was a collaborator, a needed and sought-for colleague. I must be clear about this: I was not Naraku's equal – I was neither demon nor autonomous – but I was the master's loyal and trusted ally and therefore I was given more freedom than would be expected, especially when my status was compared with his own unearthly offspring.

Outside I was his instrument to toy and play with as he pleased. Inside we were like father and son. And like a parent teaching their secrets to their young, he was thoughtful of the way he exposed the practice and taught the art form. It must be seen to be disbelieved, these vagaries of my confessions, doubtless it contradicts your notions of what Naraku was in public and private life. Nevertheless, as the sole, surviving witness my existence attests the truth of my statements.

Since I did not see the art at work my master introduced it bit by bit. He unveiled his whole secret and hidden collection and let me examine with my own, two hands samples that would not be harmful. He showed me samples that lived through the final operations and those that did not that way my mind would be prepared for the trauma of watching – and performing – the acts. And I asked questions: would they be freed and if so would they survive? Were they independent or somehow, someway, were they connected to him?

But it was the way the art was sculpted that became the basis of my education and obsession. Of that methodology already I surmised a few, key particulars. Clearly, the animals had been cut open and reworked at the most fundamental level. That much I understood from what I saw, the rest I learned from what he demonstrated. The body and its various internal operations were among the first, important lessons he taught me. All bodies of all animals were identical, he said, differing by species here and there only with respect to the sizes and locations of those internal parts. The second, equally profound knowledge involved the plasticity of the flesh – its ability to be shaped into whatever form desired by the artist.

Step-by-step I fathomed the beauty of the simplicity of Naraku's new art: just like a bonsai is trained by careful trimming so, too, can the form and function of animals be sculpted by the cutting and grafting of flesh and bone.

I said I was given a kind of freedom: I was allowed roam from the castle to the forests, alone and unwatched, through the daylight. Daylight. And no one, not Kagura, not Kanna, was as unfettered as I was. Of course, my newfound responsibilities were the cause for my reprieve but my work within the field was simple and often I spent hours lazing about the wilderness taking notes and making observations of Nature's sub-par handiwork.

The fieldwork itself was setting traps and hunting samples. Sometimes there were lists of animals to be acquired. Sometimes there were not and he and I picked through the catch for the best elements.

Once a subject was selected, it was placed into a cage and set within a basin of fogy, vaporous fluid that immobilized it. As a human I was forced to be careful the way I placed the sample into and out of the basin and how I touched the sample after it had been doused as the alchemy was potent enough to paralyze my body. Once the creature was asleep it was placed upon a cloth of silk that was fitted onto a slab of earth and clay. The mouth was secured with the aid of a muzzle (the demon possessed muzzles of various shapes and sizes) and the claws were snapped. The limbs were either pinned if they were small or chained if they were large.

With the subject secure the work started. It should be noted that the fluid's effect could be reversed by trauma – the reason for the precaution ought to be clear – therefore as knives were inserted into flesh there came, invariably, spasmodic movements and guttural shrieks. Systematically, from the outside to the inside, the physiology was altered. Strips of hide, chunks of flesh, muscles and vessels, still alive and functional were strewn about the silk and kept moist by the earth-clay substrate.

He trained me first by showing then by talking then by letting me cut and sew those innards into new and different arrangements. The lesson of the entrails was followed by the lesson of the skeleton and hide. Bones were dealt with two ways: they could be cracked and the pieces could be used to create new bones or fuse old bones or they could be sliced and grafted with other parts. Thus by adjusting the frame of the bones the shape of the body was reworked. Flesh was like a combination of filler and glue to give the physiology mass and keep it cohesive.

All the while I noted with reverence the fact that blood never, ever, stained Naraku. It simply dripped off of his fingers as if afraid to be absorbed. I was not so fortunate, however, my physiology was not as advanced as his was.

And when the work was finished, I stepped into the darkness while he drew into the light, and there upon the slab, illuminated by drifting tendrils of torchlight and shadow, was the art. I stood awestruck at the power of my master. What had been a common rat, a dog or a cat, even a bird, was now and forever sculpture. It was genius. It was immortal. What a thing to be realized: that just by surpassing Nature's artistry we could be greater than Nature itself.

I said I was awed. But that word is not enough and no other word native to language is enough to convey to you what I felt as a boy experiencing what I was experiencing. Now, after all of these years, it remains impossible to put into words my reverence of my master. Other artists merely idled with lines and color; only my master created with the flesh and bone of the mortal-world.

I was upon the threshold, neither demon nor human, altogether a new and different amalgam. And I was eager to be along my way through the gates Naraku's art opened. Never have I felt as alive as when I sculpted the material with my master guiding my hands.

Throughout those early, impressionable years it was the practice that preserved my identity yet it warped me. I knew it, yes, I knew it – that was the subtlety of my master's genius – as a fly to a spider so was Kohaku to Naraku. The play was designed so that with each and every new event I corrupted myself. And it possessed an important symmetry: an animal must be tormented to become a sculpture, so, a man must be scarred to become a god. And scarred in ways deeper and more beautiful than any line that marred the flesh.

My work, my art, was transforming me as it transformed the beasts.

Were I to have followed Kagura instead of Naraku, what would have become of me? Would I have been normal, by human standards, would I have been disturbed nevertheless? I like to think I would have been as I am. Truthfully, I could not have been normal, I was not meant to be normal. Only my demeanor remains to be considered as it would have been governed by the nature and depth of my scars. Both used me as a matter of habit but as far the ends for objectifying me were concerned, my purpose to Naraku was clearer than my use to Kagura.

Kagura.

I never told Kagura about the activity inside the chamber but I suspected she knew. She saw fragments of its design through the traps I set and the samples I collected. Doubtless she drew conclusions about eerie and occult rituals from the howls that echoed about the castle and the blood and flesh that stained my clothes every now and then.

I did not know what she knew but I did know it took very little effort for fear to be revealed. Something akin to terror – like shudders of horror – befell her otherwise icy demeanor whenever I examined the creatures of the forest. It started as accident and finished as parody – startling her, you see, became like a pastime – and the root of it was simple enough: as my artistry blossomed in my mind I sketched new and radical shapes that I was fond to trace about the contours of those animals not too scared of me to approach.

When the last of my milk-teeth fell, I was weaned off of the breast but contact of that quiet and intimate kind was not forbidden. When we were alone, in the castle or in the field, whenever I urged she allowed me loosen her kimono and expose her breast. I suckled her nipples – although her flesh was dry of milk – more often than not, though, I examined her body rapt by curiosity and arousal.

She would have killed anyone who dared abuse her, let alone expose and grope her, and she would have killed me, too, if I were not useful. Still, it never annoyed her, it never visibly-upset her when I played with her. She was amazingly tolerant and, even, encouraging of my behavior.

Just like Naraku fed off of my impulses, Kagura nurtured into maturity all of my base and carnal instincts. She fostered the connections between her body and my pleasure because she wanted me clinging onto her – needing her – for that intimate tenderness and understanding. She thought that a boy could be made to want a woman that way if it offered a substitute of friendship and a promise of solace and protection from a strange demonic existence full of enemies. It was the plan designed to whet my appetite for more and lead me into world I did not imagine existed where, of course, I got what I wanted and she got what she wanted.

Night in the castle, in the time of the month when Naraku would be gone, Kagura and I secluded ourselves within the bedroom. I do not remember what I said or what I did, exactly, only that suddenly I freed her breasts. I cupped them, feeling their warmth and weighing their mass with my hands. We were always very silent when I played with her but that night – as it was often every night – I stuttered about how beautiful and perfect they were, like artwork.

She did not as much as smile though I thought I pleased her.

I traced about her nipples. First I followed the shapes of their forms randomly switching the swirling of my fingers. Then I arched outward along their natural, bulging contours from the tips to the sides of her breasts. Then I noticed variations of textures that I connected as if it were the outline of a picture.

At once, unexpectedly, she clasped my hands and flung my grip away. She refastened her kimono and sat stern, upright. Again that horror. That terror. Where did it come from?

As quickly as she startled she recomposed herself, adjusting her posture and her position. Still upon the floor, she spread her legs until her kimono could not withstand the action. She drew me into the space that had been her lap, between her legs, and motioned me to kneel to squat face to face with her.

"His is an art of death, boy, don't you understand that? Can't you see that?"

She clung onto me so tight, so close, I poked into her belly with the peak of my stiffness which was encouraged to be displayed. Sensing my hardness, she reached it and tugged it but that did not hurt. I was used to the rough and abusive manipulations. She exposed my sac and I reacted with a start, not at the intrusion but at the harsh, cold air my skin felt.

She played with me but without the visceral fascination and curiosity I felt when I played with her. She knew everything about my body, everything about the way I worked and reacted, so much so that at times it seemed to be she was bored. That time there was a difference – there was a purpose – that revealed itself through the assertiveness of her actions.

I watched her examine the tip of my shaft. She massaged it as much as I massaged her nipples. She held my skin tight at its base and I replied by throbbing. The bobbing of my erection became ever more pronounced the longer and firmer she clutched its base. She placed my tip onto her lips and suckled it into her mouth. The feeling was new and produced sensations I did not experience before. And, again by reflex, I thrashed back my head and gasped, overwhelmed by a rush of pleasure and excitement. She continued to suckle, drawing more and more of my length into her mouth. I shuddered and grasped her kimono – I begged, almost tearing, wanting her to stop for my tip, now fully firm and engorged, became overly-sensitive and painful to be touched.

"Remember that, boy." Kagura raised herself above me. "This is the power to be a god."

She pressed herself upon me and clutched my erection, maneuvering it into her kimono, guiding it through the fabric of her clothes. Suddenly there was warmth – my skin was against her skin – suddenly, at my tip, I felt the sharp, prickly sting of hair and a new and mysterious wetness envelope my shaft. She thrust down, I stroked up. She freed my shaft from her hold but I remained where I was and I realized that I was within her body.

We continued our jerky, up and down motion. I gasped and shuddered but I did not resist. She pushed me and we fell backward upon the tatami, I on the bottom and she on the top. She urged me to keep grinding and thrusting – though her tone did not waver from its icy, dispassionate character all the while I breathed heavily and could only nod or shake an answer. Sensing my own, particular unfamiliarity, she helped by stroking her body up and down against my shaft.

Soon it was out of my control – if, indeed, it was ever – and the pace quickened into a frenzy that I struggled to maintain. I became afraid when the sensation of urine oozing out of my tip filled my shaft. I stopped – it did not abate her grinding and thrusting, it spurned her onward. I was crying saying I could be releasing water into her; she wanted it, she exclaimed, she needed it.

I bit my lip and shut my eyes, tears streamed down my cheeks as I prepared myself for the worst, possible outcome. A moment passed when I could not control the action of my body, I gasped and shook as if lightning streaked down my spine, and I felt my tip spurt something into Kagura.

She stroked while I softened. I tried to move, I tried to get up, but I was pinned and held tight against the mattress. She stopped when she noticed the pain across my face. I felt wetness rushing against my genitals and I winced, apologizing, again and again, for urinating insider her body. She laughed and arose, leaving me upon the bed, naked, like a used and battered rag-doll.

"I made you a man, Kohaku," she said.

As I realized days later it was my semen that I ejaculated into her body. Until that night I did not produce it, I did not imagine it to be a possible function among humans or demons, though I knew and watched animals mate. So it was mysterious and frightening the first time but it soon became like any other aspect of my body that she played with when it suited her.

I was uneasy about something, though, and it stayed with me, stabbing into me like guilt whenever Naraku and I were together, for my seed was within Kagura, and it felt as if it were a deep and fundamental betrayal of my master.

I was twelve when the demoness took my virginity.

Through the course of what could have been a year, we repeated the act, mating wherever and whenever the opportunity materialized. I said mating and you understand, of course, by that I do not mean it was love. It was the act of animals and too mechanical to be love. Rather it became like a chore – a habit – that more and more resembled the character of rape as the excitement of the forbidden ebbed into cold and bitter dread.

From the first time to the last time, I did not divulge or suggest to Naraku the nature of the activities Kagura engaged in. Such as it was I found myself to be divided, torn between mind and body. I was strong enough to endure Naraku's training yet I was too weak to resist Kagura's urging. And as I was split, and as I was determined to be stronger than weaker, I innocently – inadvertently – let certain, unambiguous signs slip.

Yes, again, I chose sides. And, again, I – I – I was afraid.

The shame that I was weak. The guilt that I was _human_. I feared for my future and my safety, interlocked as they were within that world, as the long-term consequence of each and every performance was jeopardizing what I struggled to gain through the years: that place beside Naraku. What I would have done to reverse the disaster? To profess my love for my master? What I would have sacrificed!

I examined the genitals of the animals I sculpted. Among the males, I recognized structures and functions equivalent of my own body. With the females, I investigated the secret, hidden organs I understood corresponded to Kagura's. In general, however, the sexes remained eerie and mysterious so, naturally, I asked Naraku.

He answered by inducing a pair of artwork to mate. I gasped; I was, visibly, uneasy at the sight of what used to be dogs, facing while thrusting into each other's reworked and human-like bodies. The act was quite uncannily familiar.

The display was typical of my master and I should have remembered that when I asked but either I forgot or I suppressed the knowledge. Thus, answering by showing, he proved two major points. First, and obvious, the correspondence of the male and female genitals, how it lead to the physical act of mating and how it lead, invariably, to the method of mortal reproduction. Second, and subtle, that the art was superior to Nature not only in form but in creation for it became clearer to me now more than before how abhorrent, how unclean, was Nature's work compared with Naraku's art.

It was where babies came from, he said, at length, more mockingly than seriously. I echoed that selfsame monkish tone when I asked if my seed made babies too. For the first time, ever, he paused at the wake of a question. He clutched my shoulders and I dropped the subject.

The effect of my inquiry was instant and radical. From that day I marked a change in Naraku's demeanor with respect to Kagura. Smoldering and consuming paranoia raged within my master. He became incessantly watchful and unduly interested about all of the aspects of her day-to-day life. Since she and I mated, she remained fixed with her best behavior and perhaps the rouse proved to be too perfect, too convenient, and defied believability. Perhaps it was I who destroyed the image of a faithful and dutiful servant she toiled to project.

Aspects of my past remain unclear and confused.

I do remember that eventually she and I stopped the ritual of reproduction and resumed the habit of massaging. Except, unlike the way it had been, I could not touch her. I could not expose her. She did not reveal an inch of flesh below the neck, her clothes being tighter and securer than ever. I did not object and I was not disappointed. It was almost like relief – as if it would be normal again between us – and I attributed the change to my master's vigilance.

I knew it then as I know it now – across time and space Naraku would be there to protect me.

Indeed I was grateful for the change.

One night I waited for Kagura to return to finish what we started. It must have been the midnight hour when I grew too frustrated with the situation to bear it any longer. I was upon the verge of relieving myself when I was struck by the urge to crawl out of the bedroom and into the hallway. I cannot describe the strangeness of the impulse for it was not driven by the world of the material – like the sound – rather I was pulled by something else. Something outside of the realm of the conscious. Yet it was as real as anything that could be sensed.

Again, as if echoed anew through the span of the years, the fortress was as quiet as a tomb. And, again, as if ignorant of the interior of the castle, I explored about the recesses of the corridors. Part of me felt like I was chased by unspeakable horror; part of me knew I was chasing the very terror into its abode. I stumbled upon the chamber, I gazed at the doorway; I wondered, I dreaded. It was not a time when Naraku and I were set to meet, it should have been empty but I knew it would not be and there as I expected behind the gates I was met by the spider.

It was a smile, not words and not gestures, that invited me into the chamber.

I entered and Naraku evaporated, as it were, into shadow. Vanishing into darkness the absence of his figure revealed Kagura, bloody and beaten, chained like a prisoner against the wall. I ambled toward the demoness, confident of my superiority over her and her powers because I was within my kingdom. I noted her condition, her torn kimono and exposed torso. The bulk of her proportions were scared and disfigured.

I was confused. Lost amidst a kind of perceptual-haze. And the disorientation persisted until it occurred to me that like the animals in the cages she had been cut and stitched. It was that she had not been transformed that confused me.

Why is she not transformed I asked though it seemed the words came out in random, nonsense syllables. What would be of Kagura?

I am certain – though I cannot be sure – that he replied it would not be important.

Naraku said that day I began a student and ended a master. I was tasked with the completion of a project entirely and uniquely my own. Start to finish I would be working by myself; I would not be receiving any help from any one. As he said that through his characteristic, noble inflection, he approached, walking from the abyss of the chamber to the slab at its center, holding within his hands a deep, metal basin. The object – which I took to be my project – was covered by the silk: the cloak was rounded along the middle and tucked-in along the edges of the vat. The contours alone did not suggest the contents but the rhythmic – and living – movements of it contents threatened to slip away the cloth and reveal itself.

He set the basin upon the slab and I, trustingly, removed the silk.

I admit the majority of the events are lost. I do not recall what it was that I had been presented with under that cloak, raw and incomplete. I do not recall what, exactly, I did with the material that earned me my distinction. All that was left of my passage from student to artisan – all that was left within my memory – were masses of flesh, smooth and hairless; scared and crushed portions of abdomens; tiny soft bones, like limbs, stitched onto a ribcage; and a misshapen, almost empty, head. A head that were it not for a lack of lower jaw could have resembled a human head. No. A demon head. No. Can I be sure? Can I be sure? It could have been a mix between the two. With those ears and those eyes and that face it could have been, could it have been –

"There's a demon inside you, Kohaku."

I remember those words, _I remember those words_, I remember those words like I remember my name or my voice or my hands. The sentence was branded into my soul forever, eternally, with its sounding I became Kohaku. Instantly the pleasures of the flesh symbolized by Kagura vanished as if like smoke and Nature did not matter anymore.

Alas, I did not have long to contemplate the life of my creation. As I examined it – with my hands for my eyes could not be forced to look upon it – the object died. It did not scream – I expected a scream and it did not scream –

Naraku clutched my shoulder and laughed. We were equal and the finer, lesser details did not matter and could not take away from my triumph. I was assured I succeeded only the creation failed.

It was too weak to sustain the perfection of my vision, he explained.

Truer words there never were before or since. My vision _was_ greater than what the world allows itself to be. And it would not be the last time life crumbled under the pressure of my genius.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

There was not time enough to contemplate the perfection of my creation, short-lived as it proved to be, just to digest the notion that artistic ends justified failures. As for the thing carried within the basin, the thing dead at my hands, what ever it was supposed to be, where ever it came from, slowly and gradually it became yet another scar only I knew of. The torture of it, pressing into my mind day after day, became a badge that like Naraku's praise was my reward.

It is hard, you understand, it is hard to become me.

The sacrifice.

Artistic ends justified failures: it was an important lesson that would be applied again and again.

I reasoned I understood why Naraku was not angry with me. Despite what Kagura and I – did – I was innocent of the purpose of the act. I suspected the aim – she wanted to be free – I did not comprehend the method. How, exactly, did one thing lead to another? Even now, at this time and place, I lack answers only theories.

But I was a pawn and it did not matter.

The group was like a family with myself as its offspring. And Naraku and Kagura pitted me against each other and used me to further their own particular agendas. It was unfortunate for Kagura's fate that Naraku's hold was tight. Why was I more loyal to him than to her? Because he did not disappoint me – is that too hard to accept? – true, the human race considered him to be evil but it is true, too, that to me, to my – Kohaku's – eyes, he was pure. He did not pretend with me as she pretended with me. My place with him was clear while with her there were only lies and illusions.

As I said, there was not time enough to weigh those issues, for almost as soon as I became master Naraku was defeated. The chaos and confusion, the shambles that became of all that I ever, really knew and loved, the effect cannot be put into words. It cannot be spoken. For the second time in my life was world was destroyed, safety and security were vanished, and I cannot speak of it.

What would become of me? Who would accept me as corrupt as I was?

I was not as others were. I did not see as others saw. Within that realm of man and demon, I was alone, as distant as the stars of the universe because the world's base was virginal compared with my sin. I was tainted. Not so much in body – where it could not be hidden. But in mind – where it could be easily and willfully contained.

Imagine how I forced myself silent while I watched the victors rejoice over the conquered. Imagine my anger and resentment that grew moment by moment while my enemies resettled into life, convinced of the totality of the triumph and assured everything would be all right again now that Naraku was slain. Where was my life? Where? Now, imagine, that hate turned into loathing and then – then – turned into something new and different. Something that could be called revenge.

Oh, yes, I knew what to do. What I had been trained to do. There, so confident. There, so alive. There, so ignorant, like the animals of the fields, raw and incomplete.

As if anything like a Naraku could be defeated.

But I forced myself silent.

I was too young to be by myself. I could not make it into the world alone. It was, I think, a clever thing that I allowed myself to use the victors. For refuge not friendship. Naraku would have approved. Naturally, they did not suspect what lurked within my heart, they noticed my eccentricities but it was easier to say I was a troubled youth, haunted by Naraku, than to believe I could be a monster as hideous as the spider. They invented excuse after excuse to explain my dark and antisocial demeanor. They coddled me, as if everything was fine between us, and I learned the lesson, I knew then and there, evil itself was powerful enough to thrive out in the open exposed and vulnerable.

Let me note that among the group there was one and only one person who escaped the glare of my bloodlust: my sister, Sango. Understand that her face did not ever, really leave me. Through those terrible, yearly years of capture, when Naraku's powers over my mind were complete, that image remained. Only its identity was blurred. I idealized the face and because it was what remained of my past, and because I did not associate it with any harm or evil, I fooled myself into thinking the person behind the face would be able to love me and accept me just as much, if not more, than Naraku.

I betrayed myself, I believed in Sango.

With Inuyasha and Kagome, the executioners of my Naraku, I showed early subtle signs of hostility. I did not lash at them directly or openly, that would have been counterproductive, rather my rebellion consisted of what I did not do. I avoided them, saying and doing very little while about them. I averted my eyes away from their faces and at those rare occasions, when I was forced to be eye-to-eye through their persistence, my expression was detached and indifferent.

I looked through them not at them.

I do not know about Inuyasha but I do know about Kagome. It hurt her that I did not recover the way I was expected. You cannot imagine the pleasure I took realizing that. That it disappointed her.

Of all of that gang, only Inuyasha could have understood me. Since he was not entirely of the human or demon world. Of course, it was harder for him than for me, he could not hide the differences and whereas I kept my hostility confined he was vocal and physical about his displeasure. But despite those superficial differences he could have opened me like a book and read my thoughts. For that reason he was dangerous and I could not afford to be alone around him.

I could not be exposed again and by a would-be demon!

Then there was Miroku. If Inuyasha was familiar then Miroku was alien. I could not understand the motives of such a man. His existence unnerved me. To be a monk and to be helpful, especially toward people who did not deserve it, it was a concept beyond my comprehension. And he was so sly, so charming – respected by men and fawned by women – it was as if his life mocked my apathy and his sociability flaunted my ostracism. He was as foreign as a being from another realm altogether therefore he could not be trusted.

I reviled Miroku as soon as I realized that opposition of personality. But I hated him when I discovered that connection between him and my sister. That connection, it could have been mine, it should have been mine, and it was not his place to be a part of it. Then and there I knew he planned to complete that domination. He wanted to make me unimportant. He needed to make me insignificant with respect to my sister's life – yes – that was his aim, if he knew it or knew it not, it did not and does not matter. I could not allow it.

Sango – she was supposed to be my sister! Mine, mine. All of her, entirely, mine.

I was young and stupid. In another world, in another time, I would have been content just leaving Miroku and Sango together, to wallow and to drown within Nature's base and earthly excrement. Yet if I had been that cruel I would have denied the humanity my greatest, artistic creation.

Then I was withdrawn, now I was paranoid. I watched Miroku and Sango. I trailed them, climbing up trees and crawling down bushes. Stopping them – that was the aim of the excursion – and I told myself, time and time again, that when the moment came, I would have to be ready. With stones or other, practical attacks gained through years of experience. But when the moment came I could not act.

How many times was I watching from behind the cover of the forest as Miroku loosened my sister's kimono? How many times was I panting and gasping – paralyzed – while he released my sister's breasts? Oh, their virginity, their beauty, I stirred imagining them to be as soft and smooth as they looked! I could not help it, I was drawn into memories of those ancient, preadolescent moments with Kagura. And – the shame of it! – how many times was I succumbing into ecstasy while he fondled and nipped them and forced his own naked flesh upon them.

But it was not pleasure that surged through my climax and my body. It was pure and utter rage. I without my Kagura and Miroku with my Sango? The universe was askew, unbalanced, clearly the world required an adjustment.

I continued to watch, determined to stop them when I felt they were – they would be – out of control. But when they exposed their flesh I froze. And I told myself to be strong. Fool! I shouted. When they played with their bodies I froze again, again I told myself to be strong. Act! Bit by bit, Miroku urged Sango to erect what would be my very own destruction. Then – at last – when foreplay became penetration I failed. I failed. I failed because I was not strong enough and I could not be strong enough as long as he interfered. Naraku, save me!

I was not the master of my fate. I was stymied and powerless. Impotent! And I hated myself that I could be that insignificant within the narrative of my life. Even now, across that gulf of time and space, I remember the feel of that dreadful and all-consuming emptiness as if it were fresh and anew.

I sulked back into the village and staggered upon the scene of the campfire. Inuyasha and Kagome sat by the flames, along with Shippo, eating the catch of the day. The fox gave me a fish – it was cooked, hot and smoking, when I grasped the skewer – and I sat, stared at its form. Its head and body, through the firelight, did it not seem to be the shape of a phallus? I grasped and squeezed the flesh. The fish, now misshapen and destroyed, extruded like goo through the gaps between my fingers. I relaxed and the rest of the food crumpled onto the ground.

I smiled, confident of my triumph over Nature. I looked, seething and ravenous, while Inuyasha whispered and Kagome gasped.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

I was sixteen and it was time to find my very own way about the world.

I left because they did not deserve me. Any they did not understand me. How could they? Impossible! I was not of the human world – that must have been clear – and though I was demon in mind was not demon in body.

Had my life not veered off of its natural and due course, I would have been apprenticed if not to my father than to another, adult male of the clan. Had my Naraku not died so grossly and unjustly, my education would have been completed. Imagine, just imagine, what a monster I could have made. Alas, with my human heritage dead and distant – and indifferent – what could be done but return to my demonic heritage?

Again I became Naraku's accomplice.

Beside a village that had been ravaged by war and famine I obtained a farm. The land was my realm, the house was my castle. There, alone, I established the _operation_. My neighbors must have thought I was a fine, upstanding youth, settling at last into a responsible and descent life. What they could not see, what they could not suspect, was my work, my art, involved a very different kind of cultivation.

I started with animals I trapped about the farm. Rats, mostly, but every so often I snagged dogs and cats and other, wilder forms. I did not use birds the way Naraku used them. They were too delicate while my methods were, then, too blunt. Anyway, I wanted to restart afresh and only gradually, by degrees, rise the ladder of complexity. If I could not regain the knowledge of the basic then I could not create any true masterpiece.

My reeducation involved vivisection. To familiarize myself with structure and function I used dead animals. I used living animals to understand the extremes of the body. How much blood could be lost? How much damaged could be inflicted? Along the way, accidentally, I discovered a way to reduce the rate of mortality: by performing the transmutation with the specimen submerged within vats of blood mixed with water and other, essential oils. And then I learned that as long as the heart beat I would be free to do the work without fear of failure.

I finished my training by exploring the plasticity of the flesh. It was the tool of the trade, that style, that method of expression entirely and uniquely Kohaku. The voice through which I, the artist, communicated with you, the audience.

I worked inside the cellar of the house but the quarters were cramped and the security was lacking. I was restricted to night and lamplight. I could not risk the day and I could not use anything as strong as a torch without attracting unwanted attention. Visitors could have stumbled into my secret. Or. People, aroused by the screams and the activities, would have wondered what I was doing away from the fields time after time.

I am amazed I succeeded despite those adversities.

Persistence and ingenuity liberated me of my restriction as, eventually, I found a cave at the edge of the farm. Mountains flanked it and jungles shrouded it. Amid shadow and darkness it escaped notice. The keenest eye of man or demon could not find it. It was deep and vast enough to house my laboratory and store my samples and there I worked day and night.

I wondered how far it could be taken. I asked if it were possible to scare away my sister's friends. Rather one particular friend. You understand I felt mischievous, so, I freed samples of artwork. Animals that had been reworked were let into the wilderness. It was a logical thing to do, really, having perfected them it was natural to ask how they fared within the world. That they scared away the unwanted would be a bonus.

And as I watched them stumble about on their two or three legs – some blinded, some with eyes askew – I felt a kinship. Not only because they were my creations, therefore my extensions, but also because we were the same. Yes, we were the same, in each and every way identical. Perfect in an imperfect world and they could not endure the grossness of it anymore than I.

One day Shippo stopped by while I was working the fields, inspecting the scarecrow. Of all of the members of _that group_ I tolerated Shippo. He was into art though he perused different and tamer kinds of expression. He showed me sculptures of dragons he completed from time to time. Without his knowledge – certainly, without his consent – I obtained an example of his work for my own, particular use: if I found a reptile of the right size and shape it was my intent to copy the sculpture.

That day it was not about his work it was about mine.

Shippo needed a plant for a certain, half-demon Jinenji. The plant, shoots of cleomes, were found where the earth possessed abundant shade and drainage. And it happened that the terrain about my cave suited the requirement. But I had to be careful. I could not just lead him directly for then and there my cover would be blown. Instead we explored about the extent of the land together while I, innocently, led the fox toward that secret, hidden location.

I prayed my excitement – I hoped my nervousness – could not be seen by the fox. Soon, however, the titillation of watching him squirming faded. Moment by moment the excitement ebbed into disappointment. Despite the proximity to the cave neither he nor I encountered anything.

Embittered and annoyed, once the plant had been collected I paused at the cave's narrow, vertical entrance and rested half in and half out of its abyss.

That was when he warned me not to be too close.

"Why, Shippo?" I asked trying to be as calm as possible.

"Can't you hear it?" he asked.

I shrugged, he shivered.

"Sounds are coming out of the cave. Shrieks of terror and pain. Can't you hear it?"

He seemed to be shocked less by the sounds and more by my deafness of the sounds.

"You can't hear it at all, can you? How did you become so deaf to suffering?"

Again I struggled to remain cool and collected. To placate him I stepped away from the cave's entrance. Again he shuddered – no – he shivered. As if struck by a blow of bitter cold air. He, too, crept away from the deep, dark crack.

"It's like a demon is at work there. You should be careful, Kohaku, you don't know what could be lurking about this place."

I laughed: "And now _you_ sound like _Miroku_! How much do kitsunes charge for exorcisms?" I joked as I mocked the monk's holy gesticulation.

Shippo, his eyes wide and wet, tightened his kimono about his chest. Through the years – though at arm's length – he grew close enough to me to know of my dislike of the monk but it was not the glimmer of the grudge that affected him. I doubt he heard what I spoke. Instead his attention was focused onto the undergrowth by the bank of the stream – a flutter echoed through the bushes.

My heart skipped a beat.

A snout poked through the vegetation. It was my creation and a pup by the look of the fur. Its skull was distorted with visible and obscene signs of fracture as if the head had been crushed and the bone regenerated into a weird and chaotic shape. Its eyes were askew as its sockets shifted through positions unnatural and unknown among the kingdom of the animals. A few patches of hide were exposed here and there and revealed web-works of scars infected by the disease of the world.

The creature lifted its head – Shippo gasped, I covered my smile with my hand – I removed the lower-jaw and the tongue waggled like a tail.

Just as quickly as the sight materialized it vanished into the void.

"Nature is cruelty, isn't it, Shippo?" I said while I looked at the fox. "Did it scare you?"

"Damn it!" he cursed, hitting my elbow. "Didn't it scare you?"

"I was Naraku's demon slayer, Shippo," I said, squeezing his shoulder.

"That wasn't Nature, Kohaku."

"Then what was it, Shippo? Art?"

I tugged his sleeve and directed him away from the underbrush to the farmhouse.

"Normal, average – _natural_ – these things are stubbornly persistent illusions. We are complacent with what we believe to be Nature so much so that when we see something new and different we shrink aback afraid because it does not conform with expectation. Of course it must have been evil – that thing – well, isn't that what you're thinking, Shippo? It must have been evil. To be reviled and hated."

"What kind of person could be responsible for something _like that_? Yes it is evil!"

"Evil is a part of Nature, Shippo, as much as the sun and the moon and the stars."

"I don't believe that!" He struggled to find words to speak – then shrugged and added: "Anyway, if it were true, animals aren't supposed to be like that. It was mutilated and someone –"

"Someone? Someone did it. Sick and perverted." He nodded and I smiled. "What you think is normal might others think is sick and perverted? If you could tell by sight that which is good from that which is evil then tell me, Shippo, just by looking at me can you judge the darkness of my past?"

I practiced thus I sharpened my skill until I reached the peak of maximum human ability. Of course I was limited because I was human, I did not possess the essence of the demonic. I could not ensure the continuation of life through Naraku's method with the use of the hair. I was resourceful, however, as I obtained samples from Shippo, Inuyasha even Koga. And I was pragmatic as I recycled it from animal to animal.

My creations were short-lived. Repetitive and uninspired. They did not please me and after a time I stopped. I stopped the collecting and the sculpting of animals. But that did not affect my love of the art-form. Night after night I sulked into the cave and stood astride the entrance. There, amid the shadow and darkness, I listened. At last, I sensed, I heard, the wail of my pain. Like a mirror of the creator, it did not emerge out of me – for it could not be expressed _with human terms_ – only echo through the struggles of the animals. Their torment within their cages as they fought against cold, bitter death and succumbed.

Was I not caged? Was I not chocked by the crudeness of the world? As much as my work I had to be free.

During those times, when the moon shined across the rocky, barren edifice, I was taken back into my childhood. The castle. The bedroom. I saw Kagura, laying atop the tatami, I approached her, the visions of her breasts, naked and swollen with milk, coming afresh as if they were the very first memories of my life. And then the veil that cloaked my past lifted and I recalled a scene I could not be certain was real or imagined. Suddenly Naraku's hand groped her breasts and abused other, exposed parts of her body. Words erupted into my mind, slithered as if uttered by a misshapen, half-man, half-spider, _flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood._ I approached her _and him_. Yes, I emerged out of the void. Then Naraku lunged into Kagura.

Reliving the memory I had been denied, my hand found its way onto the tent between my legs. Speaking as if to Kagura, while Naraku writhed atop, I begged to be nursed. Naraku raised himself off of Kagura and let me feed. I think he laughed while I squeezed her breast and bit into her nipple. Meanwhile my hand mimicked the demoness's affection. It was fantasy – but it was not fantasy – for at the moment of my release _it stopped._ I felt as if I had been shoved aside. Shocked by a new and terrible transformation. For in my mind it was not Kagura, it was Sango, and those were not my hands holding her breasts, not my lips suckling her nipples, it was Miroku!

One night, after yet another session at the cave, I retuned and discovered my sister waiting within my house. I feared she was accompanied – and by Miroku – but I was assured her friends were not around. I paused, dumbstruck, I did not know what impelled a visit at that time of night. I thought it was odd that she managed a trek as far as my farm and without a friend. I surmised she might have worried about me, hearing what, if anything, Shippo said.

I confess, though, I cannot recall all of the events of that night. The record of my consciousness was damaged. Only moments of clarity and eons of ignorance remain. My mind was distracted. I was unreleased and aroused, still, at the peak of my climax and to find her alone with me.

I do not recall the nature of the conversation. Except that eventually I asked about her favorite childhood memory. She replied with a story about Kirara. About meeting that cat-demon. As I expected she asked about mine. So many things I could have said. So many things. But I related the thing upon my mind. The memory of Kagura nursing me. I described the act with vivid and loving detail, I exposed everything about what Kagura and I did afterward. The throb between my legs was exaggerated by my excitement and I did not conceal it. She was upset and when I asked to be nursed she screamed.

Why?

Why be afraid of me? The brother who loved her? Who idealized her?

Sango reeled and I jumped. Together we embraced and fell upon the floor with me on top and she on the bottom. We slid into the recess of the house. Someway, somehow, her breasts were exposed and I brushed my face against them. It was the gentlest, kindest touch. The pleasure of it surged through my body and drove my reflex onward. Despite the struggle of her fight against me I grinded into her.

_No, Naraku?_ Did she cry: _no, Naraku?_

Weakened by the intrusion, she spun me and threw me off of her body. I crashed into furniture while she crawled against walls. Upon my back I exposed myself and with only the feeling of the air kissing my flesh I ejaculated. The spray of my seed splattered her clothes.

"But Miroku!" I shouted. "Is that the monk's privilege? Is he more worthy than I? Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, seed of my seed!"

She ran into the night.

But I was not upset. I held her, I tasted her, I marked her! I would have her again, forever.

Then and there I resolved to do the impossible – the indescribable – I vowed to perfect her!


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Nature completed my body as commonly as any other man would be created. And I appear to be normal. But what that force of creation left raw and incomplete, _my mind_, Naraku completed. He, that model of perfection, was the author of my soul. Naraku, _my Naraku!_

The hopelessness cleared and a purpose emerged – at last I discovered a mission my master would be proud of – if I could not be a hero then I would be a villain.

You believe my thoughts to be malformed. Twisted and evil. I understand and do not judge. Know that by act of will I transcend the limitation of the world while you languish within the prison of the flesh. It is because I am different that I am wrong, yes? Oh, yes! I know _you_ do not understand and judge.

Yet. I am content. Because I take pleasure at being unnatural. Accepting myself, realizing the correctness and the perfection of my vision, I drew hidden secret plans against the world. My war, like Naraku's war, would be against Nature. Against life.

Confined by the domestic-life of the farm I was helpless. I could not reach beyond scheming and plotting. Impatient with the situation I gleaned the way out of the crisis. It was undeniable and imperative that I withdraw into the world.

There, again, my practicality tempered my rashness. As much as I wanted it I could not escape without the funding. I knew the project would be expensive and I needed the profit of the harvest. I kept the farm the rest of the year. My skill at agriculture was keen enough that I could have retired my struggle but my heart was not into that business.

I was melancholic those last, few months though I could not understand why.

It was not my estrangement. My alienation. Why would it be? I was always forever, eternally alone therefore it could not be? Why would it be? Because Sango avoided me? Because Shippo did not visit me? Not the least – I swear it – the idea that they would have mattered. To be pitied by Kagome, to be prodded by Inuyasha – to be mocked by Miroku's philosophy – exile was paradise compared with that.

The cause of my depression must have been self-doubt. Doubt because I felt my talents would not be up to the task. Doubt because, despite my determination, I did not know how to execute my vision. That I refrained from transmutating animals throughout that time did not help the situation.

By the end of the year, after I sold my harvest and my farm, I started that trek into immortality.

Before I left I told Shippo, through letter, that I was leaving to attempt to reclaim artifacts of Naraku's. I knew the effect the notice stirred. I did not know the size of the party that would be dispatched to follow. I wanted, I prayed, that it would be only one of five but I knew the tightness of the group would not allow it. All would be upon my trail.

So be it – an artist needed an audience.

My target was Urasue's lair. It must not have been known – suspected – how often, how deeply Naraku was fond of visiting that witch demon's cave. He would take me and I would follow him into the chambers deep within the mountain. He wandered and inspected as if looking for something, someone, any trace of it held by the fabric of the substance of the caverns. As I trailed, from place to place, as I explored year after year everything about that lair was burned into memory. I knew it was the only fragments of my past that remained and I knew, too, it contained certain, necessary ingredients.

The journey by foot took a full winter's month. It was arduous, slow, dangerous. I moved by night – I recalled the location of the lair by stars – I rested by day with the sun and its warmth overhead. There were villages along the path and from time to time I stopped and slept. I chose the grimiest, filthiest inns; I knew the group, with Miroku's taste and ability, would not be nearby if they, too, chose to stop.

At the inn, by the daylight, while I wavered into and out of sleep, I peered through the window and spied upon the group that I knew was not, ever, more than a day, less than an hour away.

It was paranoia – I admit it – I did not have proof only intuition.

And there it was: the cave of the demoness Urasue. It had been about ten years since last I passed through its corridors and age had not been kind to the labyrinth. Bit by bit the elements of Nature consumed the cavern into oblivion. But I did not have time to be sentimental and I worked immediately at setup. First, the lighting of the torches. Then, the cleaning of the debris and the uncovering of the details. Last, the organizing of the workshop.

I was amazed. I thought I understood the scheme of the lair. But then and there I was struck by a curious familiarity that seemed to be out of place, askew through time. Such as it was, Urasue's and Naraku's and, by extension, my laboratory were parallel by form and by function. From the fixtures to the instruments, from the styles to the arrangements, similarities could not be denied.

If it had been a very different excursion I would have stopped and contemplated the revelation.

I scoured the lair until I found the supply. Alas there was very little left of the substance.

I panicked. Almost cried. At the lowest moment I actually – and I admit a shame of it – I actually considered giving up the project and retiring the art entirely.

Writhing upon the floor, like an idiot, I wept. Feeling broken and discarded, like trash, I retreated into the memory of my childhood. Before, right before, Naraku's influence. When I lived day to day at the mercy of Kagura. What was it she said? About going too far? About knowing what happened inside Naraku's room?

Upon the ground. It came. The solution occurred. My plan only had to be adjusted not abandoned. The transformations I envisioned were to be simple yet fundamental.

True, the project would not be as extensive as I thought it could be, yet the subject would be as daring and as bold.

Reenergized, I set the trap and waited. I receded into the bowels of the fortress. I watched shadows and darkness drift about the corridors. I heard sounds of intruders echo through the passages.

An interloper approached. It did not seem to be human. No. It was Kirara. I pulled a cord and exposed a vat – a gas bubbled into the environment. I had been trained to be immune to the effect of the ether so while the cat-demon slept I was awake and alert. I dragged the beast into the dungeon and chained it against the wall. It would not interfere.

Into the recess of the laboratory I returned and waited.

Sango entered into the scene. She recognized the scent of the ether and covered her face with her mask. She would not be affected by the alchemy. As she passed through the vault I tugged a rope that slowly and gradually lowered a heavy wooden gate into place. It could have been faster but I did not want to startle my sister until too late. And while that gate dropped, inch by inch, she explored noting the tools and the basins.

She noted, too, the random, telltale sprinkles of fur that revealed the path of the cat-demon.

Still searching, still exploring, she discovered a pot and uncovered the lid. Even from my location, remote and distant, I saw clearly and acutely her face contort into disgust. She drew back from the urn with its strands of long, silver hair and balls of flesh and almost crashed against the vat filled with water and oil.

I advanced like death through silence –

She reached into the fluid –

I inched nearer and nearer like the predator to the prey –

She caught a glimpse of my reflection against the water –

I struck while she shrieked.

As I lay my sister into that vat, as I ripped the clothes off of her body, my consciousness waned. At first it was my vision that seemed to be fading yet at length, moment by moment, the effect magnified across the whole of my senses. Suddenly I was disconnected. Suddenly I was not confined by the prison of my body. My awareness grew into a new and queer dimension altogether: I perceived myself as if from a distance as though I were not an actor but a witness mesmerized by the performance.

I do not suggest I was unaware of my actions. Certainly, throughout that operation I controlled my faculties. It was just that the excitement proved to be too much for my senses. Regardless, I worked caught within a dream-state like a fly ensnared by a web. My hands perpetually gliding over the flesh. Cutting and slicing and reshaping and rejoining.

While I kneaded Sango's breasts, teasing and groping, I was struck by the realization that the art was like an act of love and I laughed almost into hysteria at the thought of the intimacy even the suave, sophisticated Miroku could not imagine.

I cannot judge how long I worked. Minutes, hours, days. Labels did not matter. Time, if it existed, was measured by the amount of hair left in the spool and the number of flesh-balls left in the urn. Progress itself was gauged by the water of the vat that contained my sister as it turned from a clear, silvery fluid to a dark, burnt umber. Oils floated atop the water and added their own plethora of hypnotic colors. Of the prestige itself, only the contours could be seen, the details were cloaked by the cloudy, murky blood. Yet I toiled. My hands with neither eyes nor light to see knew from experience where everything would be and what would be done with it.

I gashed a wide, deep rent into the abdomen. An object bubbled onto the surface. I feared it was an organ that should not be reworked and I panicked at the prospect of my failure. The mass appeared to be round, the skin of it thin and translucent. It was unlike anything I encountered though it seemed to be familiar as if out of the nightmare of the past.

With fingers afraid and uncertain, I grabbed it, I tore it. I looked within and flung aside the object. Revolted and disgusted. I screamed at the top of my lungs. I do not recall if I uttered anything like words. If my hate of Miroku reached that place where language itself crumbled into a mere utterance of sound.

Damn it! It was the residue of the monk's vile seed. Realizing what it was – what it could have been – I laughed. I stopped Miroku. I could not be replaced or marginalized by the offspring of the monk. My revenge was complete.

And I scorned Nature that proved to be an impotent guardian and protector of its mystery.

I was absorbed by my work so much so that I did not detect the invasion. The gang broke through the gate and I did not notice it. It must have been a violent undertaking – since the barrier had been fortified by the children of Urasue – but I did not mind it. I did not hear them yelling 'Sango' and 'Kirara.' I did not see them crash into the laboratory. I did not know I was watched until I looked and caught those faces of my sister's friends.

"Monster! What have you done?" Inuyasha growled, his eyes especially wide and electric. He readied his hand over his sword.

I smiled and stepped back – I did not fear the half-demon, though, it was too late now too late.

"Kohaku?" It was Kagome's stern yet fragile timbre. "Where are Sango and Kirara?"

I laughed and cut-off Miroku.

"You killed my master. You destroyed my family. You thought you freed me. Dumb, foolish, blind mortals – if you learned what I learned – you only feared Naraku. What of me?"

"What are you talking about? Where's Sango and Kirara?"

"I heard enough of you, monk!" I flung a ball of flesh at the man. I laughed at the disgust that followed. "Enough of you plunging yourself into my sister like an animal. No. I won't allow it. No. Sango is mine, not yours, and now I take her away. I free you, Miroku, like you freed me."

"Shut up and give us back our friends you freak!"

Inuyasha unsheathed his sword.

I smiled at the half-demon – a wicked smile taught me by the undead.

"Oh, aren't you beautiful!" I gasped and licked my lips.

I winked – the half-breed drew back.

"He's insane. He's totally insane." It was Shippo. "Guys, I never saw this."

It was then that life stirred within the vat. The group was paralyzed by the fear, the terror of the sight of what emerged through the bloody and oily foam. Until Miroku cursed and Kagome shrieked and Shippo staggered. Only Inuyasha appeared to be unmoved.

"What the hell is that? What the hell is that you freak?"

"But can't you recognize her? Can't you see her?" There was a long, listless silence as the figure raised its arms above its eyes. "It's Sango." I approached her and grabbed her arms, her hands, and stroked her naked, wet skin. "I fixed her."

"You – it was you!" Shippo clutched Inuyasha's leg and cried. "It was you!"

"What kind of monstrosity –"

"Monstrosity, monk? My work, my art! I was taught the skill by Naraku and I mastered it. This, what you see before you," I teased, walking around the vat while holding my sister's hand and turning her body to display it, "this is my greatest creation. It's the ultimate expression of Sango. It's what she could have been if Nature had not left her raw and incomplete. Look at her, look at her, say that is not beauty!"

I aided my sister from the vat to the floor. I studied her body like an artist studied his canvas. I beamed, confident with the triumph of the genius I unveiled, I laughed. The achievement would have pleased my master infinitely. Indeed, except for fragments here and there, what was displayed in that cave, through that torchlight, could not have been mistaken as human. It was so new, so radical, it seemed to be alien. But as I stared, and as the audience gazed doubtless reviled and horrified, I could not help notice my sister's singular and particular flaw: a resemblance of humanity!

An earthly-taint remained about the breasts that I could not expunge.

Looking at my hands, now covered with blood and oil, I was reminded of that night I found Naraku within the chamber. Only, it was not the way I remembered it. He was there and Kagura was there, too, naked and restrained upon the wall. I approached while my master tortured the demoness, while he shredded her breasts and clawed her sex.

_Beautiful, isn't it, Kohaku?_

Kagura's torn, frayed skin dangled and dripped red, hot blood upon the ground.

Despite the mutilation enough of their form remained to hint of their once true and proper shape.

My master placed a knife into my hand and without thought – without question – I plunged it into the woman's large and distended abdomen.

Back within Urasue's cave I looked at my hands anew.

"Sango is mine, monk, you cannot have her! You will not have her!" I grasped my sister and clung onto her body. I grinded into her back like an animal mocking Nature's way. I grunted while I taunted Miroku: "Is this what you like Miroku? Is this your idea of beauty? Animal! If that is how _you_ make art. Writhing like maggots over corpses!"

Silence melted into scream. I cackled. My superiority over Nature could not be denied. I was so ahead, so advanced, that I too was like an alien who had to be screamed at. My transcendence out of humanity made me an object of fear. So to the fools, whose act of creation I mocked, I must have seemed to be monstrous and deformed.

But it was not I who inspired the fear. And I did not realize the true cause of the panic until it was too late. Far too late. It was not until a rush of warmth splattered against my face that I understood the tragedy my action provoked. _Say it, Kohaku, you idiot!_ In my haste to be perfect my aim overshot my reach. Damn it, I had been so careful. To the minutest detail I planned and executed the operation. Yet I allowed myself the luxury to overlook what proved to be the undoing. I could not be blamed – it was not my choice, it was the necessity – and, ultimately, it was their fault. _Their fault!_ Their fault that I was forced to use the hair of Urasue instead of Naraku. While Naraku's was always fresh and alive, Urasue's had been dead ages. Such as it was, the hair – the cement of the transformation – was brittle and almost empty of demonic essence.

The stitches were not strong enough to maintain the transmutation. My motion loosened and broke them. Then and there I watched Sango collapse through my embrace and fall into a pile of flesh and bone. A shaking, quivering mass of something that once had been alive.

I fell onto my knees and clutched what remained of the work of my hands. The flesh was immobile and while I touched it turned cold and hard. I looked at the broken, mangled pieces of my sister and I gazed at the faces of those who destroyed my happiness. I saw within their eyes reflections of my own, permanent inhumanity.

Was my revenge total? Was their world shattered too? Understand I could not help but cackle.

Artistic ends justified failures.

My triumph was short-lived. I accepted it. It was meant to be. Thus, in memory, it would be perfect, always, unmarred by the ravages of time and the cruelties of Nature. She was too beautiful, too perfect for the world of course she could not endure within it.

The group stumbled out of the cave. It could be they were too traumatized to act. They could have killed me at that moment, at that instant. Why I exist I do not know. Honestly, I do not know. The understanding will be lost to me, forever and eternally, concealed from me within that enigma of humanity. Fools.

One by one the torches died and I was alone in the dark, in the silence as if I had been entombed. I expected the sound of a voice imploring me back into its bed, instead I found the cold, hollow solitude of Urasue's abandoned lair echoing its emptiness into my ears. I urged myself onward, I willed myself back into being and I staggered out of the cave into the world.

The sun was rising, the clouds were parting. It was daybreak. Unlike anything I recalled experiencing. And for the first time, too, I saw in Nature and in humanity a canvas upon which to practice the art.

I was the master, now, I knew I could not be stopped.

_Naraku! Your demon lives!_

END


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